✘ skeleton sailor | h.styles -discontinued-

[vi]

Aleksandr's a beautiful disaster. Valarie knows it's weird to call a sibling beautiful but he's an exception. He's ten years sick and it shows. God does it show, but he looks like he has a few years left. She knows now that she's the one pushing life into his veins, and she knows that it's a selfish thing to do but she can't let him go.

She isn't ready to let him be taken away from her. His face is sunken and his cheek bones and jaw bone are the most prominent part of his face. His skin is dreadfully pale and his body has gotten increasingly thin. Some nights he can't hold down food, and other nights she finds him in the bathroom on the floor by the toilet in tears.

The latter is how she finds him tonight; curled up in the bathroom on the floor tiles with his bone thin fingers hugging his chest. She finds herself nearly crying when she sees that he's sitting in a pool of his own blood with the remains of where it came from drying at the left corner of his lips. It's almost unbearable. She's disgusted by herself. She's repulsive for everything she puts him through but she has to remind herself that she can't let him go. Letting him die is not an option. Especially now that she knows that his death will bring a sense of euphoria to Harry.

The blood on his pants is dry but the puddle on the white marble is new. "Aleksandr." She barely gets his name out. It's a name she's always struggled with saying. It's beautiful and fits him perfectly. His hair is jet black, framing his face in a way that makes him look healthier than he really is. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She puts her hands under his arms and pulls him up to his feet with little effort.

Aleksandr doesn't say a word as they walk out of the bathroom and away from the heavy copper smell. He turns his face away from her like he's embarrassed, and that's pretty much her breaking point. Her left arm tightens around his waist while her free hand cups his face and forces him to look at her.

"Please don't ignore me. Don't do this again."

"You walked in on me."

You needed help. "I said I was sorry." Valarie forgets sometimes that he's not only sick. He's still a nineteen year old kid who needs his own space. She knows she can be suffocating and she knows that's something that gets under his skin, but she's afraid of what will happen if she leaves him alone for longer than a day. He has his own house and god forbid she thought that was enough space for him without him getting upset whenever she checks up on how he's doing. "I was waiting in the living room for over twenty minutes. I was scared."

"Scared of what?" He detangles himself from under her and slowly walks to the table in the living room, still covered in dry blood. He's collecting energy so he can go take a shower. "Scared that you'll find me choking on my blood by the toilet?"

"Alek." Her tone is clipped now. She wipes under her eyes quickly and hopes he doesn't notice. She doesn't want him to worry too much about what she thinks about. "Don't ever say that out loud. Don't put that out into the universe."

"Where do you think this is going, Val? You think I'll be playing ball next year? I give it a few more months until-"

"I'm not playing with you. I hate it when you talk like that."

He must hear the edge in her voice because it's enough to make him stand up and rip his shirt off before slipping on a loose one from the back of one of the chairs. He dusts off the shoulders before walking over to her with his arms outstretched. "I'm not making jokes," he promises with a hushed voice. He pulls her in gently for a hug, careful not to press too much into her body so his stained pants don't brush her legs. His body is as warm as it can be for a dying boy. "I just want you to be ready for when it happens. I don't want you to think you had so much time after I'm gone, you know? It's a coping method, I think, just try to roll with it."